If
by snuggalong
Summary: 'It's too late. But given the choice — the chance — I'd do it all over again, if only to know you forgive me.' [oneshot, nita-centric, deathfic]


**If**

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_If I could say one thing  
__Just one—please, just one  
__I would say good-bye—just good-bye  
__And perhaps, 'I'm sorry'  
__But—  
__What's done is done_

The battle is fierce, dark, violent, endless. It is a battle on a scale that has not been seen by their race in millennia, if not...ever.

They give everything they have, fighting until the bitter end, screaming their lilting words that are still beautiful for all their savagery.

_What would they say if they could see her now? _she wonders as she lies gasping in an empty, silent field among the fallen figures of her dead comrades.

She can feel it—she is the only one left. And every breath hurts like everything, but nowhere near as much as the pain in her heart that has nothing to do with injury.

So many millennia of fighting against this—this eventuality, this ending that they knew would come but they fought against anyways, not wanting to believe that everything they loved could end so easily—all for naught.

_If this was all if would take...why didn't He do it before? Why wait, knowing that we would fight all the harder because we knew what we were fighting for?_

_Because he laughs at our pain. It makes him stronger._

_And even with all of that...we still couldn't win._

A single, ice-cold tear slides down her cheek.

_Why do we fight, if losing hurts so much?  
__Because it hurts more to lose and know that you did nothing._

Footsteps. She can hear footsteps. Heavy, echoing footsteps that bring with them the promise of an ending that she doesn't know whether to fight or welcome with open arms.

"So you're the last," a cold, savage voice says in a whisper that nevertheless carries easily through the silent field. "And look at how far you've fallen."

She doesn't answer, because there is no answer to the truth. She doesn't look up, only stares straight out, realizing with a slight jolt that this entire time she has been gazing into the dead eyes of another fallen woman, empty and sightless, the fierce fire that once filled them long gone.

Her eyes look much the same, she is sure. Only she is still breathing.

_If the fire dies, who will keep it burning?  
__Who is left to stoke the flames?__  
__I am left, but I let the fire die.  
__I am left, but my fire died long ago._

A shadow falls over her, but still she doesn't look up. She knows what she will see.

He doesn't like it. Pain rips through her as she is lifted roughly by the hair, lifted until she is dangling several feet above the ground, head tilted back to reveal wild, empty eyes, set in a pale, blood-spattered face.

He mocks her, taunts her, laughs in her face. "You thought you could beat me? Thought that you, of all people, could do what hundreds, no, thousands before you had failed to do?"

She doesn't answer. She wishes she could close her eyes, but it wouldn't change anything.

_If the soul is dead, what is the heart, the mind, the body?  
__A shell waiting to end._

"You disgust me—and not because of what you are. No, you, you alone, disgust me—for ever believing the lies I fed you."

"Were you so desperate that you were willing to believe the one person you knew, above all else, _always lied?_"

_They cannot help you. You must do it alone. You are the only one who can. They will die. They will die and it will be your fault._

_Your fault._

_If you betray to save, is it still a betrayal?  
__It is. Because when you realize it was a lie, it breaks you to know you gave up everything for nothing._

She cannot help it, then. Her eyes close and more of those tears—those traitorous tears—slip out.

"Tears, now? How pathetic. But don't worry so, pet, you'll be with them soon enough. What do they say to you young ones, again? _There's always Timeheart?_"

The words strike through her heart like a knife, making her shudder violently.

"What a beautiful lie," he murmurs, more to himself than to her. "Timeheart—a lie for fools who want to believe that love can never die." Then he looks up, a mocking question in his eyes. "Didn't they ever tell you?"

_Nita? Nita, why? Why are you—why did you—_

_I'm sorry. Sorrysorrysorry. Sorry I wished. Sorry I hoped. Sorry I believed._

_It's too late._  
_But if—if given the choice—the chance—_  
_I'd do it all over again_  
_If only to know you forgive me_

And as everything finally fades to black, her heart giving up the fight to beat any longer—_because if there's nothing left, there's no reason to stay—_she hears him speak the last words she'll ever hear, the words that will follow her for the rest of her damned eternity, if it even exists.

"_Nothing is for always."_

Not a moment, not a world, not a universe—not a heart, not a love, not even death—

_If time has a heart, it is because all other hearts stop._

_Fall up the last few steps  
__Into empty skies  
__If this is how it ends  
__Then I wish—oh how I wish  
__I could have said good-bye_

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If I knew what this was about, I'd be infinitely happier. I almost gave up on ever posting this, after spending the last half hour struggling with the effin' formatting. But here it is...a lot different than I intended it to turn out when I started it. First Young Wizards piece, and I'm not exactly sure what I wrote...the poetry at the beginning and the end was added on a whim when I started formatting, the stuff in the middle was there and turned into sort-of poetry as I went along...and don't even try to ask me what this is about. I'll tell you when I figure it out myself.

Those waiting for my other stories, I am working on it—especially SOY. Trust me, all right? Tuesday I'll have a seven hour drive with no internet to write to my heart's content.

Hope you enjoyed, and please review. I don't own Young Wizards, but I do own the idea—whatever it may be—and the poetry. Thanks to Marlex and their story _Bar Talk_ for inspiring this—sort of.


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